... funny things are everywhere

Tagged! (and some layouts too)

My friend, Rhonda, tagged me on her blog. Twice actually, but I'm a total lame-o and am only going to answer the easy one. :P

Three Things That Scare Me:
failure, cancer and... ummm...

Three People Who Make Me Laugh:
Michelle, Katie and Katie (yes, there are two funny Katies in my life!)

Three Things I Love:
music, art and science

Three Things I Hate:
uncomfortable shoes, racism and cancer

Three Things I Don't Understand:
physical chemistry, overpriced paper craft creations on eBay and why people post mean things about others online

Three Things On My Desk:
pens, lamp, computer

Three Things I'm Doing Right Now:
blogging, wondering what's for dinner tomorrow, scanning a scrapbook page

Three Things I Want To Do Before I Die:
see my kids grow up, do a triathalon (even just a short-course one) and make a difference in the world

Three Things I Can Do:
listen, talk and scrapbook (often all at the same time!)

Three Things I Can't Do:
remember names, draw true-to-life images and stop buying stuff I don't need

Three Things I Think You Should Listen To:
your conscience, the Golden Rule and the Grey's Anatomy Soundtrack Vol. 2

Three Things You Should Never Listen To:
aerobics music when you're not actually in a class, advice given to you by someone who's had more than three beers and salespeople who tell you that you look great, even though you can plainly see your flabby belly hanging out over the top of the low-waist pants you're trying on

Three Things I'd Like To Learn:
how to stop procrastinating, how to cook an entire meal from scratch without opening any boxes, cans or packets, how to speak French somewhat fluently

Three Favourite Foods:
any Thai dish with lemongrass, beef fajitas from Lone Star and chocolate (dark and smooth, please)

Three Shows I Watched As A Kid:
Eight is Enough, Facts of Life, Three's Company

Three Wonderful People to Inflict My Meme On:
anyone who's reading and has nothing better to blog about ;)

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a few of my latest creations... all 8x8 pages:

One more thing... a big ol' shout-out to my dear friend, Katie, for her Top 15 finish in the Making Memories Idol contest. Sorry you didn't make it to the Top 10, but hey, you did AMAZINGLY well for the first big contest you entered... your work is just gorgeous, and I just know you have what it takes to make it big, if that's indeed what you want. Big (((hugs))) to you, Katie... but remember, you're a superstar in the eyes of those who matter. :)

Well, that's all from my part of the world. Thanks for reading!

retaliation!

It's the battle of the scrapbooking challenges... Nathalie has fought back with a nasty challenge... a tough one for someone who's doing nothing but 8x8 pages these days. :P

10 different patterned papers, buttons, and 10 stickers... and the theme was to be "confession(s) of..."

Eeeeeek! How the heck do you cram all that stuff onto an 8x8 canvas? I'm dying here. Or at least I was...

This page is a tribute to the Shopaholic series, my latest guilty pleasure. Thanks to Michelle in SK for getting me hooked on these, and really, I can honestly say that I don't spend anywhere near as much as Becky does, even when you factor in my crazy scrap shopping habits.

To view Nathalie's take on this challenge, click here. Isn't she talented, that girl?!

a scrap challenge

My dear friend, Nathalie, and I are always keeping each other on our toes and pushing one another's creativity by issuing scrap challenges. The last one was our "Use Stamps on Your Next Five Layouts" challenge. I did, and I have to say that it wasn't easy. My pages started to look the same after a bit because I kept reaching for the same journalling stamp over and over again. :S

So the latest challenge that I issued (man, I'm bossy... it's definitely Nat's turn to chose next!) was to use the magazine ad below as inspiration... and to use black and white papers only to create a page. The embellishments could be other colours... but the paper and cardstock b&w.

And my 8x8 LO:

Click here to see what Nathalie did with this challenge! Isn't she awesome?!

And now I'll be eagarly awaiting Nathalie's next challenge. I hope it's not too hard for me! ;)

happy birthday!

Today is a big birthday day in our family... Mike's sister, Jill, and my sister, Brenda, were born a year apart on opposite sides of the world. :)

Thomas and James want to wish their aunties a happy birthday! Eat cake and be merry!

Jill, this card will be in your mailbox sometime before the end of next week.

And Brenda, I'll drop that drawing I made for you yesterday in the mail too. In the meantime, here's a page I created last night to mark your special day.

I'm off to bake some muffins and then hit the grocery store. Have a great Sunday!

a lazy Saturday

Okay, so it's nearly spring. In fact, the calendar says the first day of spring is but five days away... so can somebody tell me why why WHY it is snowing outside?! *sigh* On the upside, there's not a LOT of it. Just enough to make me want to stay in my pajamas and turn the gas fireplace on. It is indeed a very lazy Saturday... good thing we got groceries and all that other stuff earlier in the week. ;)

Yesterday, as I sorted through the clothes James had outgrown, I was thinking about the passage of time and how much the boys had both changed. I went through our collection of pajamas, jeans, t-shirts, and sweaters that both Thomas and James had worn, it struck me how quickly time has passed. Seven years ago, I was pregnant for the first time... five years ago, I was chasing a very busy toddler around and pregnant again. Wow! Has it really been that long?!

The truth of the matter is that time does fly faster and faster with every year, and my kids change every single day. They grow and mature, and for the most part, parenting them gets easier and easier. I was thinking of March madness and how stressful it is for Thomas to deal with the changes to routine that March Break brings... but this year, he's done so much better than last year, and how can I forget the year before that? My scrapping friends will remember the raw, real-life scrapbooking page I did about it in 2005.

Yes indeed, life has gotten easier. Thomas has learned to talk about what's bugging him, and he's much more adaptable now... and Mike and I have learned to adjust our expectations of him and of one another... and of the month as a whole. We roll with the punches, and everyone's happier because of it.

And that, my friends, explains why I am sitting in front of my computer, still wearing my pajamas, listening to my iTunes and blogging... at 2:50 on a Saturday afternoon. I am taking life at a slower pace when I can, and hopefully, I will be able to hang onto what's left of my sanity.

Today's creative endeavours...

(I did the doodling with Crayola Color Explosion... James let me use his. Nothing gets the creativity flowing like playing with kids' craft supplies!)

Older stuff I did a while back but never got around to posting here:

Oh, one last thing... I'm pretty excited to have three scrapbook pages soon to be published... one in each of the spring and summer issues of Scrapbook and Cards Today and one in the July issue of Scrapbooks Etc. :)

Okay, I'm off! It's time to go outside and play in the snow, hopefully for the last time this winter! Enjoy the weekend, my friends.

Finally... an update!

So it's been a while since I posted anything here. Sorry. Life has been busy. Crazy busy, actually. But in a good way. :)

There's so much stuff to catch up on. I know... I'll make a list! (For those of you who have a short attention span and/or have no time to read my ramblings, there are pictures at the end of this post.)

1. I gave blood today. I finally figured out the secret to giving blood. When they say to drink lots of fluid to increase your blood volume, they neglect to mention that you shouldn't really drink too much (if any) coffee. Because caffeine will restrict your blood vessels. I knew that, but I didn't put two and two together. But now I know. And for the record, I filled the bag in 6 minutes! Oh, and my BP was 110/51, and my HR was 71 bpm. Not bad for someone who hasn't exercised regularly in a couple months.
2. It's March Break this week. The boys are at gymnastics camp, and from the reports I got yesterday, they're both enjoying it. Thomas really needed to have some sort of structured program to attend this week. He's been edgy for the past few weeks, but he's handling the change in routine much better than he did last year. Every year it gets easier. Thank goodness!
3. Two weeks ago, Thomas got a filling at the dentist. There was a cavity in one of his baby teeth, but it needed to be fixed. He was very brave and sat still for the procedure. I held his hands and let him squeeze my hands when it hurt... man, it must've really hurt because my hands were sore when the procedure was done! (Note to self: remove rings before offering to let anyone squeeze hands next time.) Oh, and the dentist put sealant on his new molars so that should help prevent any more cavities. Poor kid.
4. We got the go ahead from City Hall to build our new daycare! Yipppeeee! It's been a busy fall/winter for the Board at the boys' daycare, but we received word that our funding is secure, so now all we have to do is keep applying for grants and raising money to work towards our goal. It'll be a busy spring and summer.
5. Nathalie and her family came to visit us on the weekend. It was the end of their March Break and the beginning of ours. We took the kids to an indoor playground and to a movie... and they did crafts and played board games and had a lot of fun. Nat and I even managed to sneak away to Michaels and Starbucks for a couple hours before they headed back to Montreal.
6. I've been scrapping. Big surprise! LOL. Nothing fancy, but I'm having fun. I've been doing the challenges at Scrapbook Centrale, and I even won a gift certificate for participating last month. Nathalie picked out some fun goodies for me with the GC (and she bought me some extras too!). I can't wait to scrap again. Maybe sometime later this week. In the meantime, check out the link to the left... my weekly LOs are posted there.
7. I met up with my good friend, Cynthia, last week. (I'd link her blog, but she hasn't updated it in months and months! *snort*) Anyway, we had an interesting discussion about parenting books while we were browsing the books in Chapters. She was the one who introduced me to Barbara Coloroso's books many years ago. Mike and I actually went to see her when she gave a talk here in Ottawa in 2004 or 2005. I like her philosophies, but like any other parenting advice, I take everything I read in her books and put it through a filter. From day one, I seemed to have the confidence to question the advice of "experts" and determine what I felt to be best for my child. Sleep training and co-sleeping, breastfeeding, introduction of solid foods, cooking separate meals for kids... everything went through the filter of my heart and mind. In the end, I think common sense is the key to good parenting, and Cynthia and I both agreed that no book, not even Barbara Coloroso's, would be able to impart that on any parent.
8. I had such fun at girls' night at my friend's house a few Fridays ago. Man, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. I love having girlfriends, and even better, I love that so many of them are smart and creative and confident and inspiring. That's what I thought about on International Women's Day last week.
9. My neighbour got a new Harley Davidson yesterday. He's offered to give me a lift to work in the spring. Wooooohooooo! I haven't been on a motorcycle in a while. I'm not sure I'll take him up on it though. I don't want Thomas and James begging to go on his bike. :S
10. Finally! Craft Club at Thomas' school is over. It was harder than I thought it would be... coming up with quick but fun crafts to make with a group of grade 5 students during lunch hour break. I thought we could do cool paper craft projects with pretty flowery paper and ribbons and such, until I met my group and realized I had a *gasp* boy in the group. He was very artistic (not to mention really smart), but it definitely put a damper on my idea of doing girlfriend photo albums and decorated jewellery boxes. We finished up last Friday by using foam stamps and acrylic paints to decorate t-shirts. Next year, I'm going to go with something that takes less planning! :P

Last but not least, a few photos from the weekend... check 'em out! ;)







Have a great rest of the week, y'all! Thanks for reading. :)

Challenge: Stamps

I was chatting with Nathalie last night on msn. We talked about many things, and at one point, we were confessing to one another some of our scrapbook shopping transgressions as of late. It turns out that we both LOVE to buy stamps, but we rarely use them on our pages. Not because we don't want to but because we never remember to! Our challenge to one another is to stamp on the next five pages we create.

Here's my first one, scrapped using a photo that Sandy gave me yesterday. It was taken back in September when Tracy Austin came to town to crop with us.

Not bad... I used a Fontwerks circle stamp, a Close to My Heart stitching stamp, and a Purple Onion journalling stamp. The felt flower is from Dollarama... gotta love bargain store supplies!

So Nat, that's one down, four to go! :)

P.S. The title of the page is lifted from CathyZ's LO from her second book, which I have resisted purchasing so far.

weekend...

Saturday morning, and we're back from gymnastics. I need another coffee to get me going again, but I feel the need to accomplish something. Not sure what... maybe I'll do some paperwork and sort through the piles of stuff lying around our house. I'm thinking of going out to see some scrapping friends who are at a big crop today. Not sure what else. I love weekends with nothing to do.

Maybe we'll create some art... here's some of Thomas' work that I... erm, found in a heap of papers on my desk. *sigh*

Have a great weekend, my friends! :)